- Lust vs Love
- Lust: possessive sexual desire
- Love: Noble attraction towards an entire being
- Lust prioritizes desire over reason
- Connection to the original sin of sex between adam and eve
- Minos
- God’s favorite and supreme guardian of the underworld
- Judges the accounts of souls assigned to circle two of underworld
- Wraps tail around himself for each soul assigned to his ring
- A different minos demands 14 children as sacrifice from Athenians to the Minotaur
- Francesca de Rimini and Paolo Malatesta
- Francesca was tricked into marrying Paolo’s brother after Paolo pretended to be his brother in a meeting
- When she found out, after marrying Paolo’s bro, had an affair w/ Paolo
- Paolo’s bro not happy, kills Francesca by accident trying to kill Paolo, then kills Paolo (who is in a different layer of underworld for betraying family)
- Dante character has compassion for her plight
- Semiramis
- Assyrian Queen who according to legend legalized incest she was so vulgar
- Murdered by illegitimate son
- Dido
- Queen of Carthage who murdered herself after husband left to establish kingdom in Italy
- Cleopatra
- Killed herself to avoid being captured by Octavious after he defeated Antony; she betrayed Caesar for Antony
- Guardian of the circle
- Helen
- Cause of the Trojan war… you remember this mess
- Paris and Achilles
- Dante did not know Homer’s versions
- Paris still punished for kidnapping Helen
- Achilles punished after Paris tricked him into meeting Trojan Princess then killing him
- Tristan
- Lover of Iseult (who was supposed to be Mark’s wife) after they drank a love potion
- Killed by Mark in arms of Iseult according to legend of Dante’s time
- Lancelot and Guinevere
- Lancelot is Arthur’s best knight and Guinevere is Arthur’s Queen
- They have a secret affair catalyzed by Galehaut (friend of Lancelot)
- Inspires story of Francesca (see above) who saw herself as a female Lancelot
- Carnal Tower
- Giant phallic-shaped tower in center of circle which Cleopatra climbs and contains many structures representing human genitalia
- The Tempest of Lustful Shades
- Purple lightning storm around the tower which traps the lustful shades forever